


The Mystery of Rory Williams

by afteriwake



Series: Trying For A Normal Life [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-05 03:26:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock knows there is something peculiar about Rory Williams. He's bound and determined to figure it out, no matter what. His clue is a passing mention Amy made of someone she called the Doctor. And now that he's intrigued he'll follow the mystery wherever it leads, even if the solution to the mystery challenges things he's believed in his entire life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> An answer to the sherlockmas Afterglow Fest prompt "Sherlock investigates the Doctor. (Bonus Ponds would be ACES, though optional. :)" I had already planned on answering this prompt when I wrote the first story in the series, so I hope you enjoy it.

“Have you wondered about Williams?”

Molly looked up in surprise. Sherlock was examining one of the bodies, and usually when he spoke it was to himself. She was used to standing around and making sure he didn’t do anything too awful to the bodies in her care and sometimes providing details of her autopsies. He didn’t usually talk to her. “What do you mean?”

Sherlock didn’t look up from his examinations. “I’ve done some research on him. He wasn’t a soldier and he hasn’t been anywhere except London and a small village called Leadworth. And yet he acts like someone who has seen more than the average person. He disappears for long lengths of time and yet he doesn’t seem to go to any exotic locales. There is something strange about him.”

“Well, maybe he just likes to keep his home life private,” Molly said with a slight shrug.

“He’s an enigma,” Sherlock replied. “He’s a mystery. And I want to solve him.”

“Have you thought about leaving him alone so he’ll keep staying here and delivering the bodies and leave you in peace?” Molly asked, tightening her hold on her clipboard with the autopsy results.

“You know how mysteries intrigue me,” he said, looking up. “I want to investigate him. I have one lead.”

“Oh?” she asked.

“His wife has begun a correspondence with John, and before she deleted the comment he saw a mention of a Doctor. No last name, just Doctor. She had said they went on adventures John couldn’t dream of. I want to meet this man and find out how he’s connected to Williams.”

“Maybe it’s a doctor he knew in Leadworth,” she said slowly. She knew what Sherlock was like when he had a mystery to solve. He’d hold onto it like a starved dog with a bone, never letting go and growling at anyone who tried to take it from him. She wasn’t in the mood to be growled at today, but if he did push Rory away he’d have to deal with the fallout of a never-ending parade of people who would hate him for what he did to the corpses in the morgue.

“Perhaps, but I highly doubt it. I’m going to find out and I’m going to talk to this Doctor, shed some light on Williams.”

“How are you going to find him?” she asked.

“Williams’s wife is a fan of my cases. Perhaps John and I should meet her face to face,” he said.

“Don’t be your usual self,” Molly blurted out before she caught herself, and she swiftly brought a hand over her mouth.

“What do you mean?” he said, narrowing his eyes slightly.

Molly panicked for a moment. True, she had a crush on the man, and while it was silly and probably never going to amount to anything she didn’t want to insult him and push him away. Even the smallest interaction could brighten her day, provided he wasn’t a total arse to her. Then she sighed. If he was going to be hell bent on solving what he considering to be the mystery of Rory then she should at least warn him. “I’ve met Amy. She’ll only put up with you being demanding and pushy so much before she shuts you out. If I were you, I’d stay quiet and let John do all the talking.”

He went back to looking at the body again. “So you think I’m demanding and pushy.”

“You can be,” she said. He was quiet for far too long for her liking, and after a few moments she spoke. “Sherlock—“

He held up a hand. “Perhaps I am,” he said quietly. “It’s a character flaw.”

She blinked. He was acknowledging a defect in his personality? He was _agreeing_ with her? Who was this man and what had he done to the real Sherlock Holmes? “I see,” she said slowly.

“Maybe you could introduce John and I to her,” he said, pulling out his pocket magnifier.

“I suppose I could. But I do like her, Sherlock, so don’t make me regret this.”

“Thank you, Molly,” he said.

She blinked again. Now he was thanking her? This must be a very important mystery to him. “Are you all right, Sherlock?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” he asked, continuing to examine the body.

“You’re being nice. You’re never nice to me. You treat me like an annoyance or a servant girl most of the time,” she said.

He looked up again. “John said perhaps I should treat you better,” he replied. “It would make you more amenable to help me, both with this mystery and future ones.”

“He’s right,” she said with a nod. “I’ll help, but promise me you won’t do anything that will make me regret introducing you to Amy.”

“I’ll try my best,” he said sincerely.

She bit back another sigh. That was probably as good as she was going to get from him, but it was better than nothing. “I’ll arrange something with Rory. I’ll call you when I have a day and time.”

“Thank you,” he said, going back to his examinations. She watched him for a moment. Next time she saw John she was going to have to thank him, because the personality changes in Sherlock were pleasant. But for right now she had to figure out a way to help him solve his mystery without alienating her new friends in the process. That was going to be tricky, and she just hoped she could do it.


	2. Chapter 2

Molly arranged for Sherlock and John to meet Amy the next evening at her home. Rory Williams had not been able to join them, and perhaps this was best. Sherlock had taken Molly’s advice into consideration, and he had to admit, it had been a good idea to stay relatively silent throughout the evening at Rory and Amelia’s home. John was captivated by Amy and the mentions of some of the adventures she had been on, so letting him guide the conversation was going well enough. But they all seemed to be garden variety adventures, nothing that could shed light on why her husband acted like nothing in the world could bother him, no matter how disturbing it might be. But he got the feeling as she and John had more wine to drink with their dinner the more talkative Amy would become. Amy held her alcohol well, but not well enough, and soon she was talking about things that made little sense. If her husband had been there she might not have been as open.

And then she had slipped, and mentioned seeing a star up close. Sherlock wanted to pounce on that, point out the absurdity of a claim like that, but he didn’t. Instead he stayed quiet, and soon she was launching into a tale relating back to her childhood, how a man in a blue police box had dropped on her shed, and how she’d waited for years for him to come back. It sounded like a bedtime story, a complete work of fiction, but he knew well enough when someone was lying, and she didn’t seem to be lying. If she was delusional, she had bought into her delusions wholeheartedly. He had to respect her husband for staying with her if that was the case.

The evening came to a close and both he and John left her home. “She’s an interesting woman,” John said, pulling his coat tighter around him as they stepped outside. “You don’t believe all that stuff about the man in the police box, do you?”

“If it’s a delusion she believes in it wholeheartedly,” Sherlock said, flipping up the collar of his coat. “But I’m not sure if she’s lying or just delusional.” He looked over at John. “Did you believe her?”

“I’ve always wondered if there were aliens and things like that,” John mused. “It sounds far-fetched, but I can’t discount it completely. And it would make sense with what I’ve known about her before tonight. She’s travelled a lot as a model, but Rory never really went with her. If there really was an alien out there who was their friend it would explain a lot.”

“If it is true, which I highly doubt, it would be interesting to know how one can find him,” Sherlock said. “But it’s probably just a fantasy she has swimming around in her head.”

“Maybe you should be on the look-out for blue police boxes,” John said with a grin.

“Perhaps,” Sherlock murmured. He had to admit the whole thing seemed far-fetched, but at the same time something nagged at him about it. There was much that she found to be truthful, so unless this was a very powerful delusion it could _possibly_ be true. But he was a skeptic, and the logical part of him kept insisting that this whole story was in no way true.

He slept on it that night, then the next morning went and did more research. He continued this way for a week, then two, then three. He had hit a wall at that point and knew he needed more information, and there was only one place he could get it: his brother. It was with a sense of resignation that he picked up the phone and dialed his brother’s number.

Mycroft picked up after two rings. “Sherlock. This is unexpected,” he said.

“I have a question for you,” he said.

“You wish to know about the Doctor,” Mycroft said.

Sherlock froze. “How did you know?”

“I have my ways.” Sherlock glared slightly even though he knew his brother couldn’t see him. “This is the type of information I cannot give you over the phone. I will meet you at your home in half an hour.”

“All right,” Sherlock said. Mycroft hung up at that point without a good-bye, and then Sherlock was left waiting. He was sitting in his chair when Mycroft came into the common room, holding three thick files. “So I take it he is real,” he said.

Mycroft nodded. “John’s new friend is not delusional. She is a former companion of the Doctor’s, as is your new associate at St. Bart’s.” Mycroft handed Sherlock the files. “This is everything the British government knows about him. I pulled the information from classified files with Torchwood and UNIT, so it is rather thorough. You may have it for twenty-four hours before I need it back. I suggest you start reading now. There is a lot to go through.”

“Why are you helping me?” Sherlock asked.

“I know you have been neglecting the case that Lestrade gave you two weeks ago to pursue this, and since I have a vested interest in seeing that case solved I thought perhaps it would be wise to help you wrap up your current mystery so you can give the homicide your undivided attention.” He went to the door. “Twenty-four hours, Sherlock. Then go back to the homicide.” And with that, he left.

Sherlock began to read the file. He was so immersed in it that he ignored John when he came home, ignored dinner, even ignored the need for sleep. The more he read the more incredulous everything seemed, yet all the information was gathered by some of the highest reaches of authority in the country. There was even a report from the Prime Minister Harriet Jones. It was nearly fourteen hours later when he finally set the last file down, having read the entire thing. He didn’t want to admit it, because it still seemed far-fetched and downright impossible, but the Doctor really did exist, and that changed just about everything in the mystery.

John had just come into the kitchen for breakfast when he closed the file and set it down. “Did you get any sleep last night?” he asked Sherlock as he went in and began to make coffee.

“I only had a short time with the file. I wanted to make sure I read it all,” he said quietly, putting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together before resting his chin on his knuckles. “He really does exist, John.”

“Who, the Doctor?” John asked.

“Yes. Amelia Williams is not delusional. If this file is to be believed, she is his most recent companion, her and her husband.”

“Huh,” John said. “Well, so now what are you going to do?”

“I still want to meet him,” Sherlock said. “I want to know more about why Williams is the way he is.”

“Well, there’s a few ways you can go about this. You can talk to Rory, you can talk to Amy, or you can use all this information you just got and try and track down the Doctor. Personally, I’d talk to Amy first.”

“Do you think she would talk to me about it?” Sherlock asked.

“Maybe. Don’t interrogate her like you do everyone else. Let _her_ talk about it however she sees fit. Don't push." He came over to Sherlock. “Think Mycroft might let you have that file for another twenty-four hours? I’d like to read it as well.”

“Possibly. If I were you I would start now, though, in case he doesn’t,” Sherlock said, standing up. “I can take care of the breakfast and coffee.”

“Yes to breakfast, dear God no to the coffee,” John said with a slightly horrified look. “I don’t want sludge this morning. I’ll finish making the coffee then I’ll start on the file while you call Mycroft and ask if we can keep it another day.”

“Very well,” Sherlock said, reaching over for the phone on his table. The solution to this mystery was going to change his worldview, he knew, but now that he knew the truth he didn’t want to go back. He wanted to learn more, and that meant tracking down the elusive Doctor, if it was the last thing he did.


	3. Chapter 3

“Thank you for seeing me,” Sherlock said as Amy opened the door for him later that afternoon. “I apologize that John isn’t here with me.”

“It’s all right. I’m sorry I sounded so silly the last time we met,” she said as he walked into her home. “I was just a wee bit drunk.”

“But you weren’t,” he replied as she froze in shutting the door behind him. “I know all about the Doctor.”

She sighed as she finished shutting the door. “Rory’s going to kill me,” she muttered.

“My brother gave me some detailed files on him,” Sherlock replied. “I know nearly everything there is to know about him, up until his most current regeneration,” he said as Amy moved in front of him and led the way to her kitchen table. “I’m curious to know what he’s like now.”

“I can tell you,” she said as Sherlock sat down. “But first, would you like something to drink?”

“Water,” he said.

She went and got two bottles of water from her refrigerator, then brought him one before sitting down next to him and opening the second bottle. “Like I said the last time, I met him when I was a little girl. I was seven, actually. I spent twelve years waiting for him to come back. Twelve years of being told I was crazy. Then he came back, all to take care of a problem I had.”

“What type of problem?”

“Prisoner Zero,” she said. “He was an alien on the run from a prison who could shape shift into coma patients. Rory noticed it first, but the Doctor trapped him.” She took a sip of her water. “After that he left again, and the night before my wedding he reappeared. I went with him. Eventually Rory joined us, then Rory died and I forgot about him.”

“How do you forget your fiancée?” Sherlock asked.

“There were cracks in the universe. Rory got swallowed by one, so it was like he never existed. It wasn’t the first time he’d died on me, but the other time had been in a very realistic dream. Anyway, I forgot about him, and then things happened and then he was back, but he was a Roman centurion made out of plastic.” She smiled slightly. “I nearly died that time, and he waited almost two thousand years outside a box protecting me.”

“I wonder how that’s possible,” Sherlock replied before taking a drink of his own water.

“It happened in another time,” she said, and then she frowned. “Or perhaps a better way of saying it is parallel dimension. The TARDIS, the thing the Doctor lives in, it exploded and wiped out the stars in that dimension. The Doctor had to reboot the universe, but he got erased in the process. I brought him back because I remembered it, and I remembered him.”

Sherlock looked at her. “So this is a different universe than you remember?”

“No. Different dimension. For example, my parents had touched the crack when I was a child in that dimension and they’d disappeared. I was raised by my Aunt Sharon. In this one, my parents are alive and well.”

“Ah,” Sherlock said, though it didn’t quite make sense to him.

Amy looked at him for a moment. “When the Doctor reset the universe, that dimension was wiped out. This dimension was how things were supposed to go.”

“Was that the end of your adventures with him?” he asked.

She shook her head. “We had more adventures. Spent out honeymoon traveling with him, and while we were travelling I got pregnant. Then he dropped us off at home but I was kidnapped and replaced with a flesh duplicate and linked up to it.” She took another sip of her water. “Long story short, my daughter is very special, and some people chose to use her as a weapon against the Doctor.”

“How is she special?” Sherlock asked.

“She’s part Time Lord,” Amy replied. “She was taken from me and Rory, but she escaped and found us. Grew up alongside us as our friend Mels. Then when she kidnapped us and the Doctor to Nazi Germany she regenerated into River Song.”

The name sounded familiar. “She died in a library,” he said.

“Supposedly, though she doesn’t know that yet.” Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “The first time the Doctor met her, she’d spent all these years with him. They travel in opposite directions, time wise.”

“That doesn’t make much sense.”

“No, none of their relationship does. Anyway, we saved her, and left her to be River Song. And then we traveled some more, and about six months ago the Doctor dropped us off here. We haven’t heard from him since.”

“I want to find him,” Sherlock said. “There’s so much I want to know.”

“Good luck with that. He’s horrible about answering calls when he doesn’t want to be found.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a phone. “I can give you his phone number, though. There’s no guarantee he’ll answer, but you can try all the same.” Sherlock pulled out his own phone, and she rattled off a number. He programmed it into his phone and then they both put them away. “If you didn’t believe all this the night I got a bit tipsy, why didn’t you say something then?”

“I’m a consulting detective. I like to investigate things,” he said with a slight shrug. “And I can tell when someone is lying. You weren’t. I had thought you might be delusional, but then I decided to do more research. Then my brother gave me the files that I spent yesterday evening reading. After that, I knew you’d been telling the truth.”

“Yeah, but based on what Molly’s told me about you, you usually would have just told me to my face I was a raving lunatic.”

“I’m changing my personality, partly in thanks to John. I’m trying to be less abrasive.”

“Well, that’s a good thing,” she said with a smile. “Rory thought I was going to regret drinking so much and talking about him. I did, but at least now I know you don’t think I’m certifiably insane.”

“I promise I will keep this between the four of us,” he said. Amy raised an eyebrow. “John read the files as well. He was more inclined to believe you from the start.”

“Ah,” she said with a nod. “That’s good.”

“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to hear about more of your adventures in greater detail,” he said. “To get to know the Doctor as he is now, before I contact him.”

“It will take a while,” Amy said.

“I have time. I don’t need to get back to my open case until tomorrow.”

“All right, on one condition.”

“What condition?” he asked.

“You tell me about this case you’re working on. I want to know about it before John blogs about it.”

A faint smile crossed Sherlock’s lips. “Very well. I can agree to that.”

“Excellent,” she said with a wide smile on her face. “Where should I start?”

“At the beginning, after he returned and took care of Prisoner Zero.”

“Okay then. The next time he saw me he took me to the United Kingdom in the future, when it was all located on a spaceship…”


End file.
